Ballet To Modern (The Explanation)

My research question is "How has classical ballet influenced modern genres of dance?" It honestly took me about 5 seconds to come up with this topic of dance and although it's all come together by this point, early on it wasn't working for me. I wasn't sure which parts of dance to focus on as I have been learning and performing in each genre since I was 3, that's just how my studio always ran things. Ms. Harper told me initial question of, "how has ballet evolved into today's genres of dance" was way too broad. Now my question isn't much different but to me I somehow narrowed it down to how the a sense of technique. At this point I am explaining how Classical Ballet such as pointe (that thing where you stand on tour toes and dance) has become a style of dance that has much more freedom and really lets the dancer make their own choices, modern. This appealed to me more as I began learning pointe two years ago and I thought that understanding how it has helped to create modern (another style i enjoy). It also created a more "focused in" research question, so I'm all set for drafting my paper.

Now for the formal part where it gets more wordy and complicated...

"During the 20th century, some of the disciplines of classical ballet were dropped in order for dancers to find and create more freedom of movement. Through many stages of dance and many cultural influences, the freedom of movement became a defined form of dance.  This new approach to ballet is known as modern dance. In the world today modern dance has become quite popular and helpful when combined with the classical techniques still known to the dance world. Modern dance has become an outlet for the new generation of dancers to express themselves." As my thesis statement explains, ballet was the initial style of dance in the world. It was very structured and required a great deal of strength and skill as well as a gentle grace. As the years went on dancers around the world began to "loosen up" these techniques and took liberties with the known terminology of ballet. This freedom was expressed in many different ways, creating dance styles such as neoclassical ballet, contemporary, modern, and eventually styles like hiphop and jazz. By the end of my paper I hope to have explained the development of these different genres and their connection back to classical ballet. To tie the whole paper together, I will focus on the topic of Combination and Exposure in my ending paragraphs. This concerns things like dancers learning a bit of ballet, modern, and contemporary alike. This will benefit them in many ways and change their perspective on genres of dance that have become popular in our generation. As a whole my paper should explain how dance began with classical ballet and ended with classical ballet, just in a more defined way that can be stretched and changed into something that fits any generation and mindset.

Reading/Research This Week

So we've spent about 40 min in about 4 class periods now on research. So for that side of the reading i'm gonna go with: 160min

As for regular reading:

• Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg - 2hrs 45min
• Rules by Cynthia Lord - 2hrs 15min
• The Season 1hr

(Did a good bit of reading this weekend...)

Reading Response

Over the break I got bored very easily and found myself reading pretty much all the time. I remembered that last Christmas I had received 3 boxes full of newly published book from the Make A Wish Foundation that made lark in's wish come true a couple years ago... remember that time we were on tv?
Anyway so i had boxes full of new and interesting books to dive into. The most recent I read was a book called The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg. When you pick it up it seems to be your typical chick flick. I normally don't enjoy reading that type of plot at all, but this book hooked me from the start and i ended up reading it in a day. I just found it magically glued to my hands and it was impossible for me to put it down.

Basically this girl in her junior year of high school, Penny, decides to swear off boys for the remainder of her high school career. This may sound super cheesy or girly or whatever to some people but for some reason I just thought it was extremely funny and creative. I really can't say too much more plot wise as i really encourage all the girls (or guys, to each his own) in class to read it! It made that little voice in my head scream, "Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover!"

Reading Times:
The Grimm Sisters books 4-8: 6hours give or take
How To Say Goodbye in Robot: 2 hours 15 min
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (it was a chick flick kinda break) 3 hours 45 min
The Lonely Hearts Club: 3 hours

A Winter Wonderland

My house is always in the Christmas spirit before anyone else in our neighborhood. My mom loves Christmas and has more decorations then anyone could ever need. She loves to be out of the ordinary and it shows as our christmas lights are strung the day after Thanksgiving and 8 Christmas trees fill our house. Every year I enjoy decorating my two "designated" trees with ornaments i've made, bought, and/or, received throughout the years. Out of the ridiculous amount of trees in our house (which have yet to come down 15 days after christmas) i have ownership and decorating duties over two of them. One sits next to our fireplace (on the left side every year or Larkin freaks out) and is covered in various ornaments while the other is in my room and is much more special to me. Every year since I was born my mom has given me an ornament as a Christmas gift, each having to do with something I during the year. The tree in my room is where i hang all of these ornaments each year.

Also in the collection, Larkin has a tree in her room with her share of "mommy ornaments", as well as her tree on the right side of the fireplace. One small tree sits on our piano and mom has deemed it the "Redbird Tree", as it is covered in ornaments of redbirds for some random reason I honestly don't even know.... Two trees sit on our porch simply covered in lights and snowflake ornaments. And the best tree of all sits proudly in our living room. Its the largest tree we find and is always known as "The Santa Tree". My mom has a serious obsession with Santa Clause, and due to that she has a collection of santa clause ornaments. She has Santa made out of a leaf, acorn, spoon, coke bottle. She has Santa on vacation, checking his list, at Disney World, and even driving a jeep. She has anything you could imagine and fills her tree year after year. She still collects ornaments to this day.

All this decorating really makes the holidays all the more special for my family every year. I love this part of my family and though it is a bit crazy, it wouldn't be the Christmas without it.